Isaiah 101

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Sorry, this is completely bogus. The source for this is Xenophon's Cyropaedia, a fictional Greek novel about Cyrus as ideal ruler, written about a century and a half after Cyrus' death. Its value for the historical life of Cyrus is marginal. Xenophon was knowledgable about the fourth century Persian army, since he served as a mercenary for them (Anabasis); the standard he describes is undoubtedly one he saw on campaign retrojected to Cyrus. The Persian phrase you cite is Neo-Persian, not Achaemenid Persian. (The Persian means "the banner of the golden royal falcon.") It has nothing to do with Cyrus. The picture you show is a modern hypothetical reconstruction.

Wow, and they say LDS apologists stretch things.

Oh thats is right MM is an apologists and he is LDS, just not fighting on the right side of things.

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

Actually Avraham Gileadi, wrote a great book about Isaiah.

[volgadon]

?

See below.

Ok "bird of prey" is probably a better translation. Is the Derafsh-e Shahbaz-e-Talayi (Golden Falcon) not a bird of prey?

Take a look at Genesis 15:11 and Ezekiel 39:4. Tell me what the birds of prey collectively known as ayit seem to feed on. Falcons prefer killing prey to feeding on carrion. Throughout middleschool and some of highschool in Israel I used to do birdwatching. The question also needs to be asked, if Cyrus' standard was a falcon, the Shahbaz (king falcon), why not use the Hebrew word for falcon? That word, incidentally, is baz.

Okay, I'll give you 43:16 (see, I can be reasonable) but you'll have to make a better case for the rest.

Ok, lets start with their being no references to military actions in these water verses.

[Fifth Columnist]

There was a discussion a while back and I thought David Bokovoy made some good points. The discussion was here, but I have reproduced his points below.

Hey Glenn,

The Isaiah quotes are problematic in some ways. I am not worried about "deutero-Isaiah" or "trito-Isaiah". That debate is still ongoing, although I guess that many Christian Bible scholars have accepted that there are those divisions, other scholars have indicated that Isaiah appears to be the work of one author.

It all depend upon what one means in terms of the expression "Biblical scholar." If you're referring to biblical scholarship which attempts to interpret the Bible in its historical ancient Near Eastern context, divorced from any specific contemporary theological interpretive lens, i.e. biblical studies taught in an academic environment, there is no debate. Isaiah 40 marks the beginning of a new exilic author.

So long as no one is mistaken in terms of how biblical scholars understand the issue. "The first person to differentiate between them [isaiah and Deutero-Isaiah] was Doderlein, in 1975; his thesis was accepted by Eichhorn (1780-83); and since then, it has steadily won its way to universal recognition in Old Testament scholarship." Claus Westermann, Isaiah 40-66 (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969), 8-9.

Unfortunately, far too many lay persons get hung up on the issue of Cyrus who appears mentioned by name as if this is the reason scholars universally accept the validity of Deutero-Isaiah. This fact, however, is really only an extremely minor piece of the evidence that leads to this "universal recognition." Isaiah 40 marks a brand new prophetic figure interacting with the Divine Council who receives a new prophetic message for the exilic community.

Although it may be almost "universal" it may not be correct. I have read Doctor Sydney B. Sperry's take on the "Isaiah problem" in the Book of Mormon, so it does not seem to be a universal holding. I would see a problem for the Book of Mormon and the New Testament also if Isaiah truly has different authors two of which came after Lehi left Jerusalem.

Glenn

It's not almost universal. As the quote I provided from Westermann suggests, the view is universally accepted by biblical scholars. I'm probably as big a fan of Sidney B. Sperry as one can possibly find, but please remember, Dr. Sperry completed his Ph.D. in 1931. Relying upon Sperry's understanding of Biblical scholarship to understand these sorts of issues is in many ways analogous to using a medical manual from the early part of the 20th century to explore the role of nucleic acid in terms of defining Nephite origins. Our understanding of the Bible and the ancient Near East has grown exponentially since the early part of the 20th century.

[Mortal Man]

Wow, and they say LDS apologists stretch things.

Oh thats is right MM is an apologists and he is LDS, just not fighting on the right side of things.

Hang onto your hat Mola, I'm not down for the count yet.

Sorry, this is completely bogus. The source for this is Xenophon's Cyropaedia, a fictional Greek novel about Cyrus as ideal ruler, written about a century and a half after Cyrus' death. Its value for the historical life of Cyrus is marginal. Xenophon was knowledgable about the fourth century Persian army, since he served as a mercenary for them (Anabasis); the standard he describes is undoubtedly one he saw on campaign retrojected to Cyrus. The Persian phrase you cite is Neo-Persian, not Achaemenid Persian. (The Persian means "the banner of the golden royal falcon.") It has nothing to do with Cyrus. The picture you show is a modern hypothetical reconstruction.

Thanks for sharing with us this interesting piece of news. What then are we to make of this?

Is that another one of Xenophon's "hypothetical reconstructions"? It seems that everywhere you go, Cyrus has got wings on him. Are you saying that his association with a bird of prey has no basis in historical fact?

[Bill Hamblin]

Hang onto your hat Mola, I'm not down for the count yet.

Thanks for sharing with us this interesting piece of news. What then are we to make of this?

Is that another one of Xenophon's "hypothetical reconstructions"? It seems that everywhere you go, Cyrus has got wings on him. Are you saying that his association with a bird of prey has no basis in historical fact?

What in the world are you talking about? This isn't a statue of Cyrus. It is a statue of a celestial being from Cyrus' palace at Parsagadae. It is clearly a Persian version of earlier Babylonian and Assyrian, and is probably related to the biblical Seraphim/Cherubim. Here are some Assyrian versions

[Bill Hamblin]

Is that another one of Xenophon's "hypothetical reconstructions"? It seems that everywhere you go, Cyrus has got wings on him. Are you saying that his association with a bird of prey has no basis in historical fact?

There are an infinite number of ways to misunderstand the past. Sorry, but I'm not up for correcting each and every one of them.

The question I asked is what evidence do we have from Isaiah 40-44 to date the text. It is a simple question. The answer is, the name Cyrus, and allusions to a temple being built (which may imply that the temple had already been destroyed). That's it. What you have done for the most part is interpret literary allusions in the text as consistent with dating the text to the time of Cyrus. That is an entirely different matter. These literary allusions you adduce are all extraordinarily vague rather than concrete and specific as to time and place. Which means they cannot help us date the text. If the text can be dated accurately, then the allusions can be interpreted. But vague allusions do not permit us to date the text. You are engaging in post hoc reasoning.

I am also not arguing for literary unity of Isaiah. I am trying to clarify the reasons scholars think Second Isaiah should be dated to the time of Cyrus. These are two entirely different questions. The only reason is because Cyrus (Koresh) is mentioned in the text. Allusions to rebuilding a temple could come any time in the half century between 586 and the time of Cyrus, or indeed could simply be prophetic visions. Even if one rejects true prophecy, First Isaiah contains temple building language despite the fact that the temple existed continuously during the life of Isaiah.

[Bill Hamblin]

Only if you first assume they were written by the same person. Isaiah 8:7 refers specifically to the [url="http://www.biblegateway.com/p

Note I am not saying first and second Isaiah were written by the same person. I am agnostic on the subject.

Let me get this straight. Because First Isaiah mentions the Euphrates, therefore passages in Second Isaiah which don't mention the Euphrates, must be about the fall of Babylon, which they also don't mention. (Note: the Euphrates is mentioned only in 27:12 in First Isaiah.)

But 8:7 actually doesn't mention the Euphrates. It mentions the River (n?h?l) and the king of Assyria. (Ashur, Ninneveh, etc are on the Tigris, by the way.) The mighty river in 8:7 is explicitly said to be the king of Assyria. What has this got to do with the date of Second Isaiah? Let's try to focus here!

[Bill Hamblin]

When Gubaru captured Opis in late September, he took control of Babylonia

[Bill Hamblin]

Why are we debating 40-44 anyway? The critical chapters are 48-49 (1 Nephi 20-21) & 50-51 (2 Nephi 7-8 ). {Chapter 53 (Mosiah 14) gets a pass because nackhadlow nicely demonstrated it to be original to First Isaiah.} What have you got to say about those chapters?

I mention Isaiah 40-44 because they are the first chapters of Second Isaiah. So, what evidence is there in Isaiah 48-51 that allow us to date the text?

[Bill Hamblin]

Let's take a look at toponyms and ethnonyms in Isaiah.

Babylon is mentioned 13 times, 9 in 1Isa and 4 in 2Isa. Proportionally they are equal.

In Isa 21:9, however, Babylon is said to have "fallen" in the Perfect tense, while in 48:14 in seems that Babylon still exists. Does this mean that 21:9 was written after the Fall of Babylon and 48:14 before? (Note also the horrible problem of verb tenses in Hebrew prophetic literature.)

Assyria is mentioned 40 times in First Isaiah, and only 1 time in Second, which may support dating 2Isa to after the fall of Assyria.

Egypt is mentioned 35 times in 1Isa, and 3x in 2Isa.

Cush (Nubia) is mentioned 4x in 1Isa and 2x in 2Isa.

Sabeans (Yemen) is mentioned x2 in 2 Isa

What is clear from this is that Egypt and Assyria of of greater interest to 1Isa than to 2Isa, while Babylon is of equal interest.

On the other hand:

Medes are mentioned 2x in 1Isa, never in 2Isa

Elam (SW Persia) is mentioned 3x in 1Isa, never in 2Isa

The Persians are never mentioned in Isaiah

This tells us that Persia is of more interest to 1Isa than to 2Isa, which contradicts the assumption that 2Isa was written after the rise of Persia.

[Fifth Columnist]

Bill, can you point me to a publication that sets forth the reasons Deutero Isaiah should be viewed as being pre 600 BC? I would like to see the argument made in a formal manner with full recognition of the evidence favoring a post 600 BC date. I am especially interested to see a formal argument that accepts the multiple author hypothesis and yet denies that deutero Isaiah was written after 600 BC.

Eerdmans commentary on the Bible provides the following explanation about why Deutero Isaiah should be dated post 600 BC. This commentary provides additional reasons (page 9 et seq).

The second major crisis was the destruction of the the city and temple by the Babylonians. In 597 BC the temple was looted (2 Kgs 24:10-15), and in 586 BC it was pillaged again and then burned (2 Kgs 25:8-17; Jer 52:4-23). The ruling class was deported to Babylonia (3,023 people in 597, 832 in 586, and 745 in 581; Jer 52:28-30). It is widely held that the prophecies of Deutero-Isaiah were given to this small group who went into exile. The prophet seems familiar with life in Babylon (see on Isa 46:1-2), and he was acquainted with the politics of the time. Most of the people, however, remained in their own land, and it is important to remember that only a few experienced exile (Ezek 33:21-29) (Barstad 1946).

Nebuchadnezzar, who had conquered Jerusalem, had been the greatest of the Babylonian kings. After his death in 562 BC there eventually came to the throne in 556 BC Nabonidus, who antagonized the priests of Marduk by encouraging the worship of other deities. He then removed his court from Babylon to Tema in north Arabia, which meant that for several years it was impossible to celebrate the great New Year festival in Babylon (ANET:306) in which the kind played a central role. Since the prosperity of the city depended on these rites, the king's absence was regarded as a disaster. In addition, the Medes were already posing a threat in the north. Cyrus, king of Persia, was at first an ally of Nabonidus against the Medes, but when defeated them and became king of both the Medes and the Persians, Nabonidus had to watch as his power increased. In the west he conquered Lydia and the Greek cities of Asia Minor, while in the east his power stretched almost to the border of China and north into what is now southern Russia.

Nabonidus returned to Babylon to celebrate the New Year festival in 545 BC, but six years later Cyrus conquered Babylon and the neo-Babylonian Empire was ended. Belshazzar's feast (Dan 5:1-30) is the OT account of the fall of Babylon. Belshazzar is described as the son of Nebuchadnezzar when he was in fact the son of Nabonidus, and the conqueror of the city is said to be Darius when it was really Cyrus. Nevertheless, the story shows how deep an impression was made by the fall of the great city. Herodotus Hist 1.190-91 and Xenophon Cyr. 7.15-30 describe how the river which protected the city was diverted so that the army could walk across the riverbed and take the city by surprise. A great festival took place at the time, and the people continued to dance and enjoy themselves without realizing what had happened.

In the light of Cyrus's career, the early oracles of Deutero-Isaiah can be dated between 550 BC, when Cyrus defeated the Medes in battle, and 539, when he conquered Babylon. The prophet wrongly predicted that Cyrus would dishonor the gods of Babylon (see on Isa 46:2; also 21:1-10). Chs. 49-55 probably come from a later period when the return to Jerusalem was a real possibility.

Both sources I cited provide a detailed discussion about each of the relevant chapters in the context of the relevant time - post 600 BC.

[Mortal Man]

What in the world are you talking about? This isn't a statue of Cyrus. It is a statue of a celestial being from Cyrus' palace at Parsagadae. It is clearly a Persian version of earlier Babylonian and Assyrian, and is probably related to the biblical Seraphim/Cherubim. Here are some Assyrian versions

Seraphim/Cherubim don't wear the royal hemhem crown (possibly envisioned by Daniel).

Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian kings were viceroys of God. Every new year they were ritually dethroned by the high priest in the presence of Marduk or Assur, and required to confess that they "had not sinned against the land or neglected the divinity" in order to get their crown back.^1,2

The top of this bas-relief was once inscribed in three languages: "I am Cyrus the king, an Achaemenian."

Assyrian and Persian cherubim are four-legged creatures.

And they don't get replicated in Sydney Australia.

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1 - Henri , Grankfort, "Kingship and the Gods, as Study of the ancient Near Eastern religions", Chicago University Press 1948 p.320.

2 - Nafissi, Saeid "Masseheyat Dar Iran", Noor Jahan Tehran, Iran 1964 pp. 40-41.

[Mortal Man]

But 8:7 actually doesn't mention the Euphrates. It mentions the River (n?h?l) and the king of Assyria. (Ashur, Ninneveh, etc are on the Tigris, by the way.) The mighty river in 8:7 is explicitly said to be the king of Assyria.

The Euphrates lies between Jerusalem and Assur/Nineveh. King Sennacherib would bring its floodwaters with him to drown Judah for rejecting the "gently flowing waters of Shiloah".

[Mortal Man]

Second, we have three contemporary sources for the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus: the Cyrus Cylinder, the Nabonidus Chronicle, and the Cyrus Panegyric. None of them mention taking Babylon by diverting the waters.

No, but the Cyrus Cylinder contains an extremely relevant and precisely timed metaphor:

15. and ordered that he should go to Babylon He had him take the road to Tintir (Babylon), and, like a friend and companion, he walked at his side.

16. His vast troops whose number, like the water in a river, could not be counted, were marching fully-armed at his side.

17. He had him enter without fighting or battle right into Shuanna; he saved his city Babylon from hardship. He handed over to him Nabonidus, the king who did not fear him.

Two of them mention that Babylon was taken without battle (Cyrus Cylinder; Chronicle 7.3.12-15). The first reference we have to taking Babylon by diverting the waters is Herodotus, writing over a century after the event. We do not know if his account is accurate or legendary. (The fact that they had the engineering technology to do so does not demonstrate that they in fact did so.) Second Isaiah makes no explicit allusion to the capturing Babylon by diverting the waters of the Euphrates.

They had to cross the river somehow, and how else could they have snuck all their troops in without anybody noticing? With the canal system already built, probably all they had to do was open a lock.

[Mortal Man]

Let's take a look at toponyms and ethnonyms in Isaiah.

Let's take a look at autonyms in Isaiah.

"Isaiah" occurs 16 times in chapters 1-39, and 0 times in chapters 40-66.

"Cyrus" occurs 0 times in chapters 1-39, and 2 times in chapters 40-66.

[Bill Hamblin]

Bill, can you point me to a publication that sets forth the reasons Deutero Isaiah should be viewed as being pre 600 BC? I would like to see the argument made in a formal manner with full recognition of the evidence favoring a post 600 BC date. I am especially interested to see a formal argument that accepts the multiple author hypothesis and yet denies that deutero Isaiah was written after 600 BC.

Both sources I cited provide a detailed discussion about each of the relevant chapters in the context of the relevant time - post 600 BC.

Both sources you mention use Cyrus as their fundamental reason for dating 2Isa. They use the references to restoration of Jerusalem and its temple as the second reason. These are the two major reasons for dating Isaiah after 600 BC, precisely as I've already said.

I don't know of anyone who has argued for a pre-600 BC date for parts of 2Isa, but I'm not an expert on Isaiah.

The possible argument is simply this. Jerusalem became tributary to Babylon around 604 BC, after the Babylonian defeat of Egypt at Charchemish, and Babylonian campaigns in Philistia. It rebelled three years later (2 Kgs 24:1). Zedekiah was installed as Babylonian puppet in 597 BC, the "first year of Zedekiah" when the BOM begins. Thus there are seven years in which some chapters of 2 Isa could have been written in the context of Babylonian domination of Judah. The BOM chapters of 2Isa (Isa 48-51) could have been written during this time and therefore have been available to Lehi. 2Isa would thus have been one of the "many prophets" mentioned in1 Ne 1:4, with whose teachings Lehi was obviously familiar. Other chapters in 2 Isa could have been written much later, and the entire 2 Isaiah compiled at the time of Cyrus. I haven't worked this up into a formal argument, but that's one possible explanation for the existence of 2 Isaiah (Isa 48-51) in the Book of Mormon that is consistent with a historicity of the Book of Mormon, and with the theory of Second Isaiah.

Another important distinction to bear in mind is the difference between the date of the composition of individual oracles in Isaiah, the date when they were first written down, the date in which they were first edited and compiled into some type of scroll, and the date of their final compilation into the Great Isaiah Scroll as we have it today (which is first empirically attested in the DSS in the second century BC, and indirectly attested in the Septuagint at the same period.)

[Bill Hamblin]

The Euphrates lies between Jerusalem and Assur/Nineveh. King Sennacherib would bring its floodwaters with him to drown Judah for rejecting the "gently flowing waters of Shiloah".

So? What has that got to do with your argument that Isaiah is describing the diversion of the waters of the Euphrates when Cyrus took Babylon?

[Bill Hamblin]

No, but the Cyrus Cylinder contains an extremely relevant and precisely timed metaphor:

15. and ordered that he should go to Babylon He had him take the road to Tintir (Babylon), and, like a friend and companion, he walked at his side.

16. His vast troops whose number, like the water in a river, could not be counted, were marching fully-armed at his side.

17. He had him enter without fighting or battle right into Shuanna; he saved his city Babylon from hardship. He handed over to him Nabonidus, the king who did not fear him.

They had to cross the river somehow, and how else could they have snuck all their troops in without anybody noticing? With the canal system already built, probably all they had to do was open a lock.

The army of Cyrus was like a flood. Therefore Cyrus diverted the waters of the Euphrates to take Babylon?

Armies cross rivers all the time without diverting the waters of the rivers.

But all you are doing is speculating. Which confirms my position that there is no evidence for Cyrus diverting the waters of the Euphrates to take Babylon before Herodotus.

[volgadon]

http://www.heavenlyascents.com/2010/10/15/what-did-the-authors-of-isaiah-40-55-really-know-about-babylon-dr-lena-sophia-tiemeyer/

[volgadon]

The winged figure has been interpreted as either a winged genii, or as some form of idealized portrait of Cyrus the Great, possibly representing the King's 'Fortune'. Some interpretation such as this seems inevitable, given that the figure wears a crown and Elamite royal robe. 'Resting on the long twisted horns of the Abyssinian ram (Ovis longipes palaeo-egyptiacus), between two opposed uraei of the headdress consists of three bunches of reeds, each surmounted by a solar disc and each set against a background of ostrich feathers. Three solar discs with concentric circles mark the bottom of the reed bundles.... The body of the figure is clad in a full-length, fringed robe that passes over the right arm. On both the vertical and horizontal hems the fringe is backed by a narrow border of rosettes, each rosette having eight petals and eight minute sepals' (David Stronach, Pasargadae-1978 p.50). The crown, though ultimately of Egyptian origin, seems to have been borrowed from the repertoire of Syno-Phoenician art.

-Simon Chew & Nick Sekunda, "The Persian Army." http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/History/hakhamaneshian/Cyrus-the-great/winged_figure_of_pasargard.htm

Almost all these images predate Cyrus.

[Bill Hamblin]

Let's take a look at autonyms in Isaiah.

"Isaiah" occurs 16 times in chapters 1-39, and 0 times in chapters 40-66.

"Cyrus" occurs 0 times in chapters 1-39, and 2 times in chapters 40-66.

Which may be evidence for dual authorship, but tells us nothing of the date of 2 Isaiah.

Look at this chart.

Isaiah.tiff

Notice first, that 10 of the 16 references to Isaiah come from the historical chapters 37-39, which parallel 2 Kings, and are probably not written by Isaiah.

That leaves 6 references. Three of these seem to be editorial captions (1:1, 2:1, 13:1), added at some point in the compilation process.

That leaves 3 references to Isaiah which may to be original to text. When you consider that 1 Isaiah is 40 chapters, and 2 Isa has 15--nearly 3x as much--this means proportionally, we would expect 1 reference to Isaiah in 2 Isaiah. The fact that we con't find one is hardly statistically significant.

(Note that the Gospel of John never mentions John by name.)

[Bill Hamblin]

http://www.heavenlyascents.com/2010/10/15/what-did-the-authors-of-isaiah-40-55-really-know-about-babylon-dr-lena-sophia-tiemeyer/

Yes, I was going to reference this too. It's interesting stuff.

[Bill Hamblin]

Seraphim/Cherubim don't wear the horned hemhem crown of Daniel's vision.

CFR that that crown has anything to do with Daniel. (And even if it does, what has that got to do with the date of 2Isa. Can we try to focus here?)

Note I didn't say it was a cherub. I said the image is probably related to the Hebrew idea of a Cherub.

[Bill Hamblin]

And they don't get replicated in Sydney Australia.

What possible significance does Sydney Australia have for interpreting ancient Iranian iconography?